The game was tied 2-2 heading into the 6th inning and it became a battle of the bullpens in Game 2 of the World Series. The Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera got out of the inning easily with his relentless 100+ mph fastballs. The Giants however faced disaster and gave up 5 runs in the 6th and had to use 5 pitchers to get out of the frame. While Bochy is known to be the master of mixing and matching, Yost has a different approach.
"After the sixth inning," Yost said, happily, "my thinking is done."
Of course... because he has 3 guys in the pen who would be closers on other teams.
He has a guy with a 1.41 ERA (Herrera) hanging around his pen, ready to devour the sixth and seventh innings of any critical October baseball game. He has a guy with a 1.00 ERA (Wade Davis) ready to overpower whatever hitters make the mistake of showing up at home plate in the eighth. And then he has a closer with a 1.44 ERA, who was just named the AL reliever of the year (Greg Holland), ready to complete the domination in the ninth.
"Hey, just tonight," said the Giants' Jeremy Affeldt, "their seventh-inning guy [Herrera] came in throwing 101 [miles per hour]. I mean, 101. That's usually a closer."
The Giants are really going to have to hope that they can get to the starters early and score some runnings in the first few frames if the Royals bullpen keeps throwing like this. We'll see if tonight was just an off night for the bullpen or if the Giants are really in trouble.